My senior year of college can be described as one of the best and most stressful times of my life. This is the last “hoorah” before stepping out into the adult world. My goal is to make the most of it, but it feels like there’s no time for fun when one of the most important things is lingering in the back of my head: finding a job. I could be having a picnic with my friends on the quad or going out on a Saturday night downtown, and the only thing I was able to think of was sadly a job. The pressure to be secure straight out of college eats away at me every second of every day, and I know I am not the only one.
At the start of the year, I was not worried about finding a job. I believed that I had plenty of time before I had to start thinking about that, but I was completely wrong. Time was my enemy as each month flew by at lightning speed, and before I knew it, it was winter break. Around this time, I noticed that many of my peers had already been applying for and getting interviews for after-grad positions. I couldn’t help but feel that I was way behind on what I should be doing. This then brought on the pressure and worries that follow this stage of graduating. “If I don’t get a job straight out of college, my parents will hate me. “How am I going to afford the adult world without a salary?” “Everyone will think I’m a failure and lazy if I’m unemployed.” Those recurring thoughts helped jump-start my difficult journey towards finding a job.
No one ever tells you about the pressure and how competitive the job search environment is until you are thrown into it. Especially when employers have no idea what my major is and/or what we do, it can be a nightmare. Trying to find the perfect job where I can further my career is like finding a needle in a haystack. Then, there is also the juggling of all job-search websites, including LinkedIn, Handshake, Indeed, and so many more confusing ones. And don’t get me started on the job market right now; how am I supposed to get a job when they won’t even give me the chance to interview? My only comfort in this process is knowing that I am not the only one struggling and that I can still get help from the career center. I recently spoke to an alumni panel in one of my classes, where someone asked the question, “How did you find your first job after graduating?” A lot of them said it was through networking and having a great resume, but if that’s all it took to land them a job, then why is it so hard to get a word back from an employer? I have resigned myself to clicking apply to every job I could find because you never know what could happen.
In the end, I wish I had listened when someone said that finding a job takes time because maybe that would have saved me some stress. For now, I plan to continue building my résumé in hopes that it will get employers’ attention, update all my job application websites with my current information, and continue to apply to everything and anything I see that could potentially help my career. My advice for people currently looking for jobs (including myself) is simple: good luck.
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